Home Coming
by Kennie Barton
Summary: Where he is the real question. Not that it is the only question, many things do not add up about the strange place he's found himself in. With the help of someone he knows, but at the same time, does not know he strives for one thing that will fix everything; a single phone call. Rated T for mild language.


"I'm going home."  
It was a simple enough request, one that everyone had ignored for entirely too long. He was leaving. He was going home.  
"I'm sorry, but you're not going anywhere without a legal representative's signature." The woman had a kind smile that had failed to hide the dissatisfaction. He had gotten on her nerves hourly since his arrival six weeks prior.  
"Then let me call my dad," he leaned over the desk reaching for the phone.  
"I'm sorry. You have to have permission to use the phone." The nurse always apologized when denying him something he needed. Like that phone call, prisoners were granted a phone call, why was he denied something a criminal got?  
"I have to leave," he dropped back on his heels, watching the nurse through narrowed eyes. "If you'd just let my call my dad he'd come down here and sign your stupid papers so I can leave!" He reached for the phone again, his fingers brushing against the plastic receiver.  
The nurse smacked his hand away. Gently, but he was still offended that he had been hit. "Patients are not allowed to use the telephones unless they have been given permission by a doctor, legal guardian or legal representative." No apology for hitting him, or for telling him he could not use the phone to call his father.  
"Then get the doctor," he shouted drawing the attention of a few of the other patients milling around near the nurses' station. "I'll sit through one of his stupid sessions and say what I need to say to get that phone call!"  
"I'm sorry, but it doesn't work that way," another smile as the nurse looked at a file. His file, this particular nurse was his personal warden during the day, she always had his file. "You don't have another session with Dr. Brunner until Friday."  
"That's a whole week away," he slammed his fist on the desk between them. "I have to go home, today."  
"No, you don't," the nurse responded, not kindly but not in anger. "What you have to do is report to class. They'll be worried about you."  
He scoffed backing away from the desk. "They won't be worried. I'm stuck in here just like everyone else!" he glared at the nurse until he rounded a corner and could no longer see her.  
Sighing he turned to the main lobby of the hell he was trapped in, little tables meant for grade school kids with bright colorful chairs filled with teenagers. They were all acting like they had not heard his latest argument, but he knew better. All of them followed his arguments like a political campaign. It was the only entertainment they ever got since the ward banded the use of all electronics. As he sulked across the lobby toward his "class" he could see all of them watching him from the corner of his eye.  
He had to get out of there.  
There were a few things that never added up about his stay in the weird mental hospital. He had no idea why he was in there. His doctor, a middle aged paraplegic who loved tweed, said he was diagnosed with a hand full of phobias that made him a danger to himself and society. Which was odd because one of these alleged phobias was Sociophobia—the fear of society or people in general. Another was Scopophobia—the fear of being seen or stared at. He had Ophthalmophobia—the fear of being stared at, Katagelophobia—the fear of ridicule, Isolophobia—the fear of being alone, Gelotophobia—fear of being laughed at, Dementophobia—fear of insanity, and Novercaphobia—fear of step-mother.  
He was diagnosed with all those things, but he had never been afraid of any of that, ever. He was good with all those things; he was okay in crowds, in general was capable handling society, he disliked being stared at as much as the next guy but he was not afraid of it. And a lot of those phobias were playing off each other and opposing each other all at the same time. And he only had a dad, no mother and never a step-mother.  
Also, he had no idea how he got there. He literally woke up one day with vague memories of a life that everyone insisted was a dream. That was impossible. All that stuff could not be a dream. It had been too real to be made up.  
Then there was the issue with the phone. This place lacked a public phone, and no one was allowed to use the one phone in the place. They said the patients needed permission to use the old rotary phone at the main desk, but none of the patients had permission. He had done a little snooping and learned all of the teenagers trapped in there were suffering from the same thing as him.  
Made-up—or not so made-up—memories, an outrageous number of phobias that contradicted themselves, sudden appearances, and one goal; to use that phone to call the one parent they remembered. That was another thing. Everyone had the phobia of a step-parent. Something was up and it was making him irate.  
Irate, where had that word come? He would never have used a word like that. He would have gone with angry, maybe so far as _pissed_. He would have chosen a much newer term for his enraged feeling than irate. But he still had thought the word irate to describe his emotion about the situation. It had something to do with the place, something to do with the mysterious mental institution he had landed himself in.  
"You should stop pestering the staff," it was her, the blond annoyance that lived in the room next to him. She had classes with him, all of the classes, and bothered him whenever and wherever possible; like giving unnecessary commentary about his hourly argument with the nurses and his warden. "It isn't doing you any favors."  
"It makes me feel better," he snapped at her, like he did after every encounter with the nurses.  
"It makes you a nuisance," she supplied, as she always did after his snappy comment. "It just makes them more likely to deny you ice cream at supper."  
"Are you sneaking in my room after hours?" He raised a brow at her, speaking just loud enough to draw the attention of the nurses teaching the "class". "She's breaking rules, and stealing ice cream from the freezers!"  
"Jackson, Chase. If I hear one more word about stolen ice cream, candies, paints, blocks, or clothes, you are both going to Iso for the rest of the day." He turned at the same time as she did to give customary glares at the nurse threatening them. "And don't turn those glares at me, enough is enough."  
"Enough would be enough if I had actually done something," the blond annoyance sniped crossing her arms over the orange shirt they were all forced to wear. "He is throwing out accusations with nothing to backup his claims. I shouldn't be punished for his idiotic ramblings."  
"Idiotic ramblings," he leapt to his feet, turning intense green eyes on the girl. "You're talking in words no normal person would dare think about using. And you say I'm making stuff up. But how else would you know that they don't give me ice cream? She has been spying on us. And I demand retribution!"  
"I have far better things to do in my spare time than to spy on idiots," she came to her feet, she was a little taller than him but they still stood nose to nose, intense green eyes fighting stormy grey ones.  
"Both of you have gone too far," the nurse was getting better. She already had the security beefs in the classroom area, ready to separate them and take them to the Iso.

"I'm going home."  
The blond annoyance had a similar mission. It was no wonder they fought so much. Iso isolated them, they could plot and the warden would be none the wiser. She was smart, she could get out of her cell and into his in moments.  
"I touched the phone." He said it proudly, this was an accomplishment.  
"Cute," she always looked annoyed. His plan was stupid, his plan would never work. But he had touched the phone. "You probably pushed it too far. They won't let us near the desk again."  
"I'll get that phone," nothing was going to keep him away. Nothing was going to stop him. He was going home. She was probably thinking the same thing, they thought in a similar way.  
"Why can't you just stick to the plan?" Her voice is mixed with exhaustion and exasperation.  
"The plan is taking too long." They had been over all of this, they had discussed this multiple times.  
"It was working," she hissed, hitting him on the shoulder. "I had the appointment with Brunner tomorrow!"  
"They told me he was gone until Friday."  
"You're appointment is on Friday," she hit him again, harder. "I could have had the phone. I could have called your dad, my mom, and everyone else's parents!"  
"It was taking too long," six weeks was too long a wait. He had expected her plan to already have him out. He had expected the brilliant child of a genius to already have him back in his apartment with his father. "I have to get out of here."  
"You think I just want to sit in this, this prison?!" Intense glare met intense glare. "If you had just stuck to the plan we could have been out tomorrow!"  
"We wouldn't have. They're never going to give us that phone," he accused barely managing not to shout. He had been saying all the right things for five weeks. He should have had that phone already. She had been there way longer than he had and she was still denied communication with the outside world. "We're gonna have to bust out on our own."  
"I already told you; we've tried. It doesn't work," he had been told all about the others who tried to escape. They were taken away by doctors to another ward, rumor said it was ten times worse than the hell they were already trapped in.  
"It'll work for me." He was confident in his ability to break out of a hospital.  
"You're being stupid, Seaweed Brain," she huffed standing up.  
"Why did you call me that?"  
She opened her mouth to respond, and shut it just as quickly. "I've," she sighed looking down at herself, "I've always called you that." She spoke slowly, like the memory was not all there.  
"We haven't known each other that long," he stood beside her, "and you've never called me that before." The blond annoyance, he called her. He had never taken the time to learn her name, but somehow he knew. Wise Girl. Annabeth.  
She looked down at her orange shirt, her grey eyes searching for something on the bright fabric. She had called him something, something that made no sense to either of them, but at the same time made a lot of sense. The memories, the ones everyone said was made up, Seaweed Brain had something to do with that. Just like Wise Girl…  
"Who's you're mom?"  
Her eyes snapped, locking on his. The glare and hatred were gone, it was confusion and fright that held her. "My mom?"  
"Yea, you just have a mom, right?" Somewhere he remembered that, even though he had never taken the time to learn about the girl.  
"So?"  
"All I have is a dad."  
"So?"  
"But the memories, the ones about outside of here, they say I have a mom and a step-father."  
She nodded as if that made sense, like she already knew that about him, "I have memories of a dad and step-mother."  
"I'm getting that phone."

"Good morning Dr. Brunner," his warden smiled as the paraplegic man came in, his motorized wheelchair making the only noise on the entire floor. "Miss Chase is waiting in her room for you. And we've moved Mr. Jackson up to today, he had a bit of a spell yesterday."  
"That's fine," Dr. Brunner sighed heavily, removing his outer coat and handing it to the warden. "I'll see him directly after Miss Chase."  
He moved back in the shadow of a doorway as the paraplegic passed him, hiding in the unused room. The nurses had moved his appointment forward, they were worried about him. He had pushed it too far. But he was going to get that phone; nothing was going to stop him.  
Another of the patients had agreed to help, a newer arrival who liked to disassemble things. His objective was simple: lock the door once he and the paraplegic were in the annoyance's room. He nodded to the boy as he slipped in the annoyance's room after the paraplegic doctor. The door swung shut, he heard the lock click.  
"Miss Chase, I hear you were placed in Iso again yesterday," Dr. Brunner started. The doctor always knew when a patient had been sent to Iso. "Care to tell me what happened?"  
"Nothing," she answered. He could believe she always began that way, Dr. Brunner hardly seemed upset by the non-response.  
"Miss Chase, something must have happened. You use to be so well behaved and now you are sent to Iso on a daily basis. Tell me, what has happened."  
"We want a phone call," she saw him behind the paraplegic doctor, and stood up from where she had been sitting on the bed. "We want out of here."  
"We?" Dr. Brunner turned his wheelchair around looking back to the door.  
He was standing there, blocking the locked door. He was staring at Dr. Brunner with intense green eyes, his arms crossed defiantly over his chest. "Good morning Dr. Brunner. Are you up for a two-on-one?"  
"Mr. Jackson," Dr. Brunner's motorized chair moved toward the door. "You are not allowed in a girl's room. I'm afraid I must ask you to leave."  
"And we're afraid that's not a possibility," the blond annoyance moved around the motorized chair to stand beside him. "We know something is going on here."  
"What on Earth are you talking about?" Dr. Brunner seemed genuinely confused by their accusations. But he was not buying that, the paraplegic doctor was in the inside loop of this messed up metal ward. The doctor had the answers he was after.  
"We want a phone call. We're going to call our parents, we want out."  
"Your parents have sent you here for your own protection. I cannot breach their trust in this matter."  
"We want to talk to them." He fought not to turn to glare at the annoyance. They had spoken at the same time, retorted the same words with the same annoyed tone.  
"I cannot allow it," Dr. Brunner did not shout, but the tone frightened him. "Your parent's have entrusted me with your safety."  
"Our safety?"  
"It is a dangerous world out there. This place is your only haven. The rules are here to protect you."  
"From what?"  
"And why can't we call anyone?"  
"Your parent's have forbidden contact with the outside world. It would attract too much undue attention." Dr. Brunner spoke like he had said this before, explained this same taxing subject hundreds of times. The paraplegic sounded exhausted by the conversation.  
"We want to hear it from them," the fury behind her stormy eyes was enough to cow the most determined of men. The intensity at such a close range…Dr. Brunner had no chance of refusing her.  
The doctor pulled small mobile device from his tweed jacket and handed it to Percy. Percy held the phone up looking at the illuminated screen, and he knew the number to call. His mother was probably worried sick.  
"Hello," he smiled hearing his mother's voice over the telephone. He closed his eyes forming the words in his mind to ease her worries.  
"I'm coming home."

_I woke with a drinking straw in my mouth. I was sipping something that tasted like liquid chocolate-chip cookies. Nectar.__  
__I opened my eyes…  
Annabeth pursed her lips, then said quietly, "I'm going home for the year, Percy."_

**A/N The ending is taken from**_**The Lightning Thief**_**by Rick Riordan. Based on characters created by Rick Riordan.  
**


End file.
